


the children are our future

by robaca (goodlamb)



Category: Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Crossover, Disabled Character of Color, F/M, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Illness, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:11:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodlamb/pseuds/robaca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Holly moves west after high school. Thomas never leaves Southern Cali.</i><br/><br/>Holly White and Thomas Teller II form a support group for children of cable TV antihero dads. (If Don Draper's kids are up for it, they're welcome to come along.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was part of my NaNoWriMo for this past November. I just feel like these kids should meet and get to talk about their shit dads. :)

She moves out west after high school.

Her mother thinks it’s to avoid all the people in ABQ who think they know everything about her because they know her last name. Really Mom should have known by then that Holly got used to those knowing stares and probing questions way back in the third grade, when Bo Hunter told her that he watched the news, and he knew that her daddy was a monster and that _she_ would probably be one too.

Or when the Lifetime movie came out and she got endless screenshots taped to her locker, especially the one of the guy playing her dad holding a gun to a little baby’s head. The movie ended up being really campy, which only made more people see it for laughs. Since she was a minor they changed her name (to Heather, Heather White) for the ten minutes or so she was in the movie. But everyone in her school knew.

Or when Jesse Pinkman got out on parole and the media interest took an upswing, and she had reporters following her to school, asking for her to comment on the 15 year anniversary.

The point was, Holly deals with it, all of it. She decided not to give a shit a long time ago. Walter White is not her father.

What she needs to get away from is her mother.

It wasn't just her. It was her, and Aunt Marie, and even Flynn, even though he didn’t drop in all that often now that he’d gotten that job offer in Seattle.

But when he was there, for Thanksgiving and birthdays, she could feel his eyes on her. She could feel all of their eyes on her, all the time.

It was the worry in her mother’s eyes when she signed up for AP Chemistry. The look she got when she asked Aunt Marie a question about Walter, when Marie got drunk and told her she looked just like her father. When she told Flynn that she thought he should take that money, even if he didn’t trust it. Even if it did come from Walter, beyond the grave.

She was certainly taking hers, once it came. And she was using it to get the hell out of New Mexico.

 

 

Thomas never leaves Southern Cali.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a new face at Nar-Anon. Thomas had been keeping up a steady attendance since high school, though he switched around to different chapters. But still, he was pretty familiar with all the regulars, especially on campus.

She was blonde and grey-eyed, dressed a little uptight, with small-framed glasses and her hair down loose to her shoulders. She bit at a thumbnail while everyone introduced themselves.

“Hi, I’m Tom,” he said when it circled around to him. “I’m a child of addicts.”

Then, just a spot or two down the line from him (this group didn’t get too large, maybe 9 or 10 on average plus the leader) it was her turn. “Holly,” she said, “and I’m not sure if this is the place for me yet. I mean, I’m not sure if I fit the…criteria.”

Bill, the leader at the head of the circle, smiled in the benign way he was trained to. “That’s alright if you don’t know. We’re welcoming of everyone here.” His smile didn’t falter for even a second as she looked back at him, face blank. “Is there someone in your life affected by drugs or narcotics?” he asked.

Holly’s eyes left his face, looking over Bill’s shoulder into a hazy distance. “…Yes. Sort of.” She blinked slowly, pursing her lips as she did so. “He’s dead, does that still count?”

Bill smiled again. “If he’s still influencing your life, it counts.”

Holly seemed to accept that, taking in a deep breath and nodding at Bill, which he took as a sign to continue.

Thomas tried not to, but he stared nearly the whole meeting. She kept herself apart, since she didn’t know the opening prayer or any of the common affirmations. She didn’t share, not after Amy cried about her mom falling asleep with the stove on, or after Devon looked pissed as they told him— again— that lending his sister cash was enabling her addiction.

Tom, like usual, was mostly there just to listen. But something about her, about the calculation in her eyes as she glanced around the room. He startled when her eyes so much as flicked over him. He wanted to be…observed by her. He wanted her to see him.

And maybe that’s what made him raise his hand, feeling bolstered when those grey eyes came back his way.

Bill smiled at him, close lipped and happy, like always, though he seemed especially pleased to hear him share.

Tom coughed before starting, suddenly losing a bit of his nerve and looking down from where Holly (and the rest of the group) was staring at him. He hadn’t really planned on what to say, so what came out was just the truth.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad lately.” He glanced up from where he was staring at his knuckles, saw Holly and all the rest of the looking at him, and then looked back down as he continued. “My bio dad.”

He got stuck there, and Bill nodded at him, prompting, “From what I remember, your biological father wasn’t an addict himself.”

Tom agreed, shaking his head. “Nah, he was…sort of involved with it, I guess you could say, on the supply side. And he was a heavy drinker, I guess. From the stories I’ve heard though, he was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a user.”

Bill let him pause for a moment, but then asked, “And why has he been on your mind?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about him. My brother does, a little, he was like, four or five when he died. And he has good memories, I guess. He tries to tell me about it sometimes, but,” Tom cut off, shaking his head.

Bill didn’t prompt him again, just waited, ever patient.

“From everything I’ve heard that wasn’t from my brother, he was just…a bad dude. I mean…really bad. Bottom of the barrel, monstrous type shit. And…I don’t know, man. I turn that over in my head a lot. This guy who I’ve never met is in my blood. It feels like he’s following me around sometimes, and he’s been dead for almost 20 years.”

Bill must have gotten the sense that he wasn’t going to talk again, because he decided to interject, with the downsized, serious look he administered for life-advice talks. “I think a common feeling among children of abusers, be it of drugs or otherwise, is anxiety, or even fear, about becoming their own parents. Does anyone else ever feel that way?”

Hands tentatively went up around the circle. Amy, with her red, dead eyes. Ricky, whose dad was a mean, mean drunk.

Holly kept her hand down, meeting Thomas’ eyes across the room. He felt caught by her, even as he raised his hand high.

“There is, of course, a genetic predisposition for narcotic dependency, and other addictions. And in some ways, of course, we all become our parents as we age. But just the fact that many of you come here, and don’t want that for yourselves, shows that you’re willing to do the work—”

There was a scoff, from across the room. Thomas’ eyes shot towards the sound, as Holly spoke up, voice caustic. “I think that’s bullshit,” she said.

Bill tilted his head, with a different kind of smile, still patient but one that obviously didn’t like being interrupted. “What is, Holly?”

“I don’t need to work on anything, in order to not become my dad. I’m my own person.”

Bill’s smile softened, as he blinked slowly. “That is certainly true. But the fear that your future is out of your hands is a very natural emotion—”

“Bullshit,” she said again. “I don’t have to be afraid of that. I refuse to be.” She looked off into the middle distance of the room, not like she was avoiding Bill’s eyes but more like she thought the empty space she was gazing through was more important. “My father ruined his life with his own choices. Every step of the way. There’s nothing in me that says I have to make the same mistakes.”

Holly got up from her chair and excused herself, “I’m sorry, I don’t think this is the right place for me.” Thomas watched her sensible loafers, worn overtop argyle stockings, stomp out of the meeting room.

***

Thomas stayed for the rest of the meeting. There was a second where something strange inside him said nothing but _follow her, follow her, get up and follow her_ , but he swallowed it down. A strange girl leaving a Nar-Anon meeting in a huff— she probably wouldn’t appreciate being followed out by a weird dude, anyway. And he had never left a meeting like that. He hadn’t missed one since 10th grade, actually.

So he stayed, through a couple more shares, and a few more affirmations from Bill, and the closing pseudo-prayer that made an attempt at being vague and non-religious even as they pleaded some unknown power for courage and wisdom.

He’d heard the prayer they used in actual NA, when he went with Wendy to one of her meetings. It was exactly the fucking same. He didn’t get that, how he would need the same stuff to deal with _living_ with an addict that he’d need if he actually was one. But whatever. Serenity, courage, wisdom. Couldn’t hurt him to have some of any of those.

As he left, not bothering to mill about with the others for coffee and stale brownies, he thought about the one he’d like the most: _serenity._ Calm. Quiet. Peace of mind.

He just wanted his brain to shut off for a minute sometimes. Overthinking, overthinking, overthinking— about his dad, about Abel, about Wendy, about his scars, about his _real_ dad, about everything waiting for him in Charming, just half a day’s drive away. It went round and round and round, never stopping, never quieting.

The meetings helped, some.

His eyes were on the ground, and he was rustling around in the pocket of his hoodie for his tangled up earbuds, when someone called out to him. “Hey.”

He looked up. Holly was sitting cross-legged on a brick ledge, about waist-high. Her nice light-colored skirt and dark stockings were probably getting messed up, getting snagged on the brick, but it looked like she was more focused on the tablet laying in the space between her legs. She had her loafers pushed off onto the cement below her, and one earbud in her ear as the rest dangled. But she was already pulling the headphones out of her tablet jack, winding them quickly around her fingers. She stood up quickly, tucking her stockinged feet back into her shoes and grabbing her bag off of the ledge.

When she was done she stood standing a couple yards off from him. He couldn’t read her face, which was calm and closed off and made him think of still waters. Maybe, curious?

Thomas put a hand up, in a half wave. “Hey?” he said back.

He watched her breathe out. “Hey,” she said again.

They got stuck like that, for a moment, both staring at each other. Soon the people from group were gonna come filing out of the building. 

Her lips pursed, and when she spoke it sounded more unsure than he would have guessed. “I. I— something told me to stay and see if you would talk to me.”

He swallowed, and didn’t say it, but he was thinking, _Same here._

She furrowed her brow but otherwise her face shut down again. It didn’t look like she had much of a plan for what to say next. He swallowed the acidic taste of his anxiety, rubbed the back of his head, and said, “Do you wanna go get some coffee?”

She shook her head, a little fast, coming off frantic. “I don’t drink coffee.”

He huffed out a nervous laugh. “Um. French fries? How about french fries?”

Her lips quirked up at the side, and she replied softly, “They’re bad for you.”

“But do you eat em, though?”

She smiled, full but with lips pressed closed. It made him want to smile back. “Yeah,” she said.

“Alright then. Let’s go.”


	3. Chapter 3

They ended up at a local McDonald’s, mostly because it was within walking distance. He felt a little bad for her, walking on the side of the highway in her leather shoes, and carrying her bag, but when he asked if he should carry something, she raised an eyebrow and looked at him like he asked if he should lick his own shoes. So, whatever.

They ordered an extra large fry, to share. He also got a hamburger off the dollar menu— that was one of his favorite tricks, if you just asked for a plain burger they’d give you one of the ones they put in kids’ meals— because he hadn’t eaten all day and he was fucking starving. Plus he only had a meal plan enough for one swipe a day on campus, so. Half inch patty with onions and ketchup it was.

Holly ordered a small chocolate milkshake, and she turned out to be one of those people who dunked fries in it. Wendy and Abel were both those kinda people. It was still disgusting.

He gave her the same stinkeye she gave him when he asked to carry her bag, and she shrugged, saying, “I like what I like.”

It took them a while to actually do what they came there to do. He was a nervous motherfucker, always had been, like Lucius said, so he wasn’t really made for starting up conversations. Though her pale, clear face was still impassive ( _and beautiful,_ he thought, while stuffing four fries in his mouth), he was pretty sure he couldn’t feel the same waves of anxiety rolling off of her. She might have just been thinking. Turning it over in her head.

She was the one to start it, anyway, in the end.

“I thought the point of the anonymous thing was that we aren’t supposed to have contact outside of group.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Says the girl who waited for me outside a meeting?”

She shrugged again. “I’m not really part of the group, I don’t think.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I guess not.” He dunked a fry into his ketchup, which he had plenty of, since she was doing her milkshake thing. “You ever going back?”

Her nose wrinkled underneath the bridge of her glasses. It was fucking cute.

“No, I don’t think so. You?”

“Yeah. I’m a regular.”

“I figured.” She tilted her head to the side, took a sip of her shake. Stared at him. “Why do you go?”

He sighed, taking in a deep breath. Looked away from her sharp gray eyes and down at his sandwich. “I don’t know. I’ve been going for a long time. I kind of like the routine of it at this point.”

She pressed, voice full of something more severe than curiosity, “But does it help?”

He looked back up. “I don’t know.”

Her lips quirked, downwards this time, in disappointment.

“What about you?” he asked. “Why’d you show up today?”

She shrugged. “Thought it would tell me something I didn’t already know. Guess I was wrong.” She flicked her eyes back to him. “Do you really worry about that stuff? About becoming your father?”

He looked back down, feeling his face get hot. Took a bite of his burger.

It took her a second to get the picture, but she leaned back, putting her cup down. Her voice was a little softer. “Sorry. People say I come on a little strong sometimes.”

“Yes,” he said, still looking down. “All the time.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting to see in her eyes when he looked back up (pity, apology, disgust, annoyance), but whatever it was, he didn’t find it.

She was biting her pale pink lip. Her eyes were bright. The still waters of her face looked troubled, and full of curiosity.

***

They ended up trading numbers. They texted, for hours, every night that week— usually until she said she had to go and actually get some work done, or else keep to her very prompt bedtime, which sounded ridiculous to him for a college student, but when he made fun of her for it she friended him on Facebook just so she could send him links to articles about how college was most likely to not only develop but encourage insomnia, and some sleep studies that proved your brain could be permanently altered from keeping a circadian-rhythm-defying sleep schedule, or something. Jesus. Wendy would call her a piece of work.

He smiled all through the ensuing argument, though, a thrill going through him each time his browser blipped with a new message.

Her profile was bare bones. It felt lame but he smiled when he noticed she had as few friends online as he did, and went through some of her pictures. She didn’t have any up of her family. Her place of birth was unlisted. Her birthday was unlisted, and so was her place of education, even though he knew she went to USC just like he did.

They kept up chatting there on Messenger, and he sent her links to songs and shows he thought she’d like. She used emojis like an old person, saying “X Holly” when she signed off, and using “:D” faces when she liked whatever he sent her. Wendy narrowed her eyes at him when he came over for dinner and kept smiling at his phone, but he told her it was just something funny he was reading. She didn’t buy it. He didn’t really care.

They talked about his dad some more. It was easier without having to be face-to-face. He gave her a rough outline of his fucked up family tree, skimming over the ways people had eaten it and any real information about his brothers. He told her about how he first started going to Nar-Anon after his dad’s relapse when he was in high school— how scared it had made him, since Nero had always been the rock of the family.

She was quiet, about her own life. She said she had a mom back home in New Mexico, and an older brother who she didn’t see much, and an aunt. She didn’t talk much about her father— called him a sperm donor, most of the time— but she sent back serious and somber messages whenever Thomas stumbled over something in conversation that she said she went through too. She talked more about the anger, about how she hated being pigeonholed into being something she didn’t want to be. It all boiled down to sharp pings that came to him on his phone, that all said, _I feel it too. You_ _’re not the only one._

It all helped about as much as the meetings ever did, maybe even more.

A few weeks later, they had met up twice since that time in McDonald’s, once just studying together in between one of Holly’s chem labs and his required Lit class (which he was  enjoying, a lot, surprisingly) and once in the Starbucks on campus. She looked unamused by his choice of venue, and ordered a small hot chocolate while he ordered a Venti Americano. Black, but with lots of sugar. She looked at him suck it down like it was keeping him alive (which, to be honest, it was) with contempt in her eyes. “I’m never going to get the bitter bean-water thing.”

“First of all, how are you even a real college student? And second, you’re a Chem major, you should understand that chemical reactions can take nasty ingredients and get a delicious product out of them.”

“Most of the products I make in class end up being extremely poisonous to humans, and I’ve sampled your bean water. It’s gross.”

Later that week he told her quietly over the phone about his shitty suicide attempt a couple of years back, and how he and Nero were in this weird fucked up guilt standoff where Nero thought it had something to do with him using, and Thomas thought his fuck up made Nero relapse, and none of it had fucking anything to do with each other, and it didn’t have anything to do with his bio dad either, or his fucking brother, it was all just his fucked up head, and he shook so hard while he was telling her that he dropped his phone onto the floor of his dorm room, and he couldn’t understand why he was trusting this girl he just met, trusting her so completely that he felt hollow.

She was quiet, in response, and told him that if he ever felt like that ever again he had to tell her. “You have to,” she said, her voice low and emphatic. He could feel her grey eyes on him, even through the phone, and he swallowed.

He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it, and told her that he wasn’t going to do it again, but that yeah, he would.

He told her about how he’d tried out one of the groups for self-harmers but that he didn’t like it, he didn’t fit, and all the talk of self-loathing and nihilism (no matter how relevant) made him crazy, so he found Nar-Anon and let his dad and Wendy think that he was using it to deal with their addict shit. He told her how he felt guilty every time it came up and Nero wouldn’t look at him, shame heavy in his eyes.

“I don’t know how to make them understand that there just isn’t a support group for ‘people with fucked up bio dads who they never met,’” he said, leaving out, _bio dads who they never met but still hang around them like a head cold or a shadow._

Holly laughed at that. She didn’t laugh often, didn’t show her teeth or throw her head back, so when she did it came as a wonderful surprise. It was a throaty laugh, crackling slightly through the cell connection, deeper than you’d think with how she talked.

“I feel like we could just make our own.”

He grinned into the phone, his shaking nerves finally letting his muscles stop clenching. “Support group of two?” he said.

“Why not?”

He laughed. They talked about the Harry Potter remake coming out, and how it looked like shit.

Still later she offered the first bit up about her father, and in a very Holly way, inserted it nonchalantly, mid-conversation: “He kidnapped me once. When I was a baby.”

Thomas wrinkled his brow, lost. “What? Who?”

“He kidnapped me. The sperm donor.”

He shook himself. “Jesus, Holls.”

“Yeah,” she said, on a sigh. He thought she might stop there, but she continued. “There was an Amber Alert and everything. Apparently he came to his senses, or my mom talked him out of it, but after a little while he just left me at a fire station.”

“Fucking Christ. I’m sorry Holly. That’s fucking messed up.”

She breathed deep, the exhale going static-y over the phone. “Yeah,” she said, sounding distant, “Yeah it is.”

***

She likes that he doesn’t know her. She likes that he’s fucked up, but still kind of normal, and quiet, and anxious, and kind.

She knows she has a touch of “distrust of male authority and attention” based on her family history. You could even go so far as to call them daddy issues, perhaps.

But she trusts Thomas, with his sturdy hands, and his big eyes, and the way he tells her that the small pieces of her past she lets slip are fucked up, when everyone else she’s ever met has considered her family’s story a foregone conclusion.

She likes him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucius and his mohawk arrives! For those who don't remember, Lucius is Nero's son from a previous relationship, who was born with spina bifida due to his parents' drug use. He's maybe 10 or 11 years older than Thomas. I'm kind of estimating at the level of mobility he'd have at this point in his life, and all of my information about SB comes from the internet, so if you know more about the condition and spot anything I got wrong then feel free to let me know.

“How the fuck am I still the one driving your ass around?” the guy asked, his head leaning outside the side window of his van. He spoke with a bit of a slur to his speech, heavier than Flynn’s but still in a way that reminded her of her brother. He grinned at Thomas and her from behind thick glasses, his black hair spiked up into a mohawk.

There was a plan to to go an exhibit at the Science Center, something neuroscience related that Thomas had come to her about, with hands in his pockets and his big eyes on the ground. Usually she would drive, but her sensible silver Prius was in the shop, so Thomas had said they could bum a ride off his big brother. They had been waiting, in the cold fall air, on the curb outside the dorm. She was comfortable in the quiet, and she thought Thomas was too, though he’d often shoot her furtive glances, with a shy smile on his lips and his sneakers digging at the gravel of the parking lot. She resisted the urge to smile back.

The van that had eventually pulled up outside the dorm was huge, and she could see through the windows that the passenger side in the front was taken up by a huge mechanical lift. An electric green walker-chair convertible was in the empty space where the seat might have gone. Thomas laughed as he pulled open the sliding side door for Holly to climb in. “Luc, this is Holly; Holly this is my brother Lucius, he’s a jackass, don’t listen to a word he says.”

“Yeah, the jackass who’s gotta pick your boyfriend up all the time because he refuses to learn how to fucking drive.”

Holly raised an eyebrow at Thomas. “You don’t know how to drive?”

He was blushing. He whispered low at her, “No, and what, you’re picking up on that and not the boyfriend part?” He turned back up front to Lucius, who was pulling out of the handicap space, using what looked like hand controls. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“All right, whatever you say bro.” Lucius met her eyes in the rearview mirror and gave an exaggerated wink, looking like it took him a second to coordinate the movement, but pulling it off.

She laughed. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah,” he said, “we’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other. He ever asks you out, you can bet your ass that I’m gonna be the chauffer and chaperone.”

Thomas blushed again and muttered, “Holly has a car,” which only made Lucius guffaw over the steering wheel.

***

She stayed quiet for most of the ride. Thomas and his brother filled it up with chatter, about how the Raiders were playing, about Thomas’ classes, about Lucius’ job at some tech-y startup. They didn’t talk about their dad, who she knew ran their family ranch (she pictured a dark-skinned farmer in a checkered shirt, riding Mustangs or herding chickens, or something). They didn’t talk about Wendy, Thomas’ stepmom, or adopted mom, or…whatever (Holly didn’t really understand their family setup, but who was she to complain about unconventionality?) who was some sort of women’s counselor. They didn’t talk about their other brother, either, although she knew Thomas had mentioned him— not fully related, or something, and in between his and Lucius’ ages. Though Luc and Thomas sure as hell weren’t connected by blood either, not that you’d ever think it.

They did try to talk over her head in Spanish— she couldn’t remember if she told Thomas that she’d taken Spanish since elementary school, and studied Latin, and knew some German and a little French, too— but it was all eyeroll worthy stuff about her being a little pretty flaca blanca, and her being out of Thomas’ league, which she would have gotten anyway just from Thomas’ blush and the tone in which he told Luc to shut up.

She sat in the back seat, taking it in, trying to make herself as small and still as possible, like she might scare them away. Even as they argued, Thomas lit up around his brother, with big toothy smiles and a howl to his voice that didn’t come out when it was just him and her.

Just watching the two of them, Thomas’ family already seemed more alive, more full of life and love than hers ever had. She loved Flynn, she loved Marie, she loved her mom, but as long as she’d been alive there’d been a shadow over their family, and they pulled together more like they were guards for the wreckage that Walter White had left behind, rather than members of a family that loved each other’s’ company.

***

The exhibit was okay— they visited the booths and the presentations, and sat in on the IMAX 4D documentary; first the one about brain mapping, which was theoretically what they were there for. And then, because Thomas seemed to like it so much, they doubled back and snuck into the one about volcanoes. The shaking seats seemed to make more sense for that one, and he laughed as they jolted. She found herself smiling in the dark, and a strange quiet place inside her wondered if he would try to hold her hand.

Thomas fought her a little but Holly paid for everything: the tickets and the movie passes and the stuff at the snack bar. He tried to make some noise in complaint but she raised her eyebrows, and said, “Trust fund, remember? It’s a lot of money and it’s just sitting there. And all this crap is like four times overpriced.” When he looked crestfallen she poked him in the chest and said, “Gallantry is stupid. And the ‘the guy pays on a date’ thing is archaic.”

That perked him up. He didn’t stumble over himself so much as to actually ask “is that what this is?” but the question was there, in his eyes, as he smiled slow at her, so she sighed and raced him to the tornado exhibit.

They did the bed of nails, traveled through the human body, and then split up when Thomas wanted to get lost in the Air & Space halls and she wanted to see the jellyfish.

By the time they found each other again, it was getting late, and Luc was supposed to pick them up out front. They got Dippin Dots— her, chocolate, him, rainbow sherbert; the kind of ice cream she only ate at stadiums and museums and waterparks. They sat on a bench outside, sun setting on the city.

She sucked the melting drops off the tiny plastic spoon that came with their ice cream, as Thomas did the same next to her. She could feel it, though, vibrating just beneath the surface. That happened a lot with Thomas. For all he was a quiet boy, like she was a quiet girl, Tom’s feelings bubbled up quickly, and he’d shake, all anxious, with the urge to get it out in the open.

And she could tell what it would be about, too. She wasn’t ready to talk about…whatever it was they had _._ She realized, of course, that being with each other all the time and talking whenever they weren’t, that this contentment she felt just looking at him— she knew that a lot of that added up to something like dating.

But as it was, she fished quickly for another topic of conversation to push him off course, just to stall for a while, until she got her head on straight. What came to mind was…Flynn.

“I like your brother,” she said, taking another bite of her ice cream, looking at him with a well-practiced, guarded expression, peering out overtop her glasses as he looked up from the cement he’d again been toeing. Whenever she got tightly wound she always had the option of looking at the rim of her frames instead of into the eyes of whoever she was speaking to. Thomas’ eyes, especially, could be big and liquid and too easy to trip into.

“Yeah?” he replied, pulling her out of the thought.

“Uh huh.” She swallowed the chocolate. “He’s sweet. Reminds me of my brother, in some ways.” She quirked her lips. “But also really doesn’t, I guess.”

“Yours is uh, Flynn, right?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he lives in Seattle now, with his boyfriend, and his big law firm position. Don’t see him much.”

“He has…?”

“Cerebral palsy.”

“Right, right.”

“It’s mild. He uses arm crutches.”

He murmured, in reply, and then they fell quiet. Awkwardness burned in her throat for a moment and that more than anything pushed her to say,

“I think I’m jealous. Of how you two get on.”

She looked up to see him chuckling, one eyebrow raised. “Seriously? Did you miss the part where he trashed me for the entire ride down here? We practically killed each other growing up.”

She shrugged, and said quietly, “Yeah, but you’d kill for each other, wouldn’t you?”

That sobered him. He got quiet again, and didn’t respond except for a terse nod, after a beat of silence.

She sighed. “I’ve always thought….” She cut off and started again. “Flynn and I were born really far apart, I mean, almost 17 years apart. He was graduating high school when my mom was pregnant with me. And…our parents had a, a messy divorce, a nasty divorce, I guess, around the same time.” She tried to skate by that quickly. “So I guess some of that accounts for the awkwardness. But.” She sighed, dropping off.

Thomas prompted her. “But?”

She turned away from him, looking out into the road. “I’ve always thought that he looks at me, and sees our dad.” She took in a breath. She’d never said that aloud before. “He thinks I’m like him,” she said, nearly a whisper.

She could feel Thomas’ eyes on her, watchful, thinking. “The sperm donor, you mean?” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was trying to make her laugh but it worked, almost. She smiled, just a little, and looked back at him, to say, “Yeah,” on a breathy kind of sigh.

Luc showed up and made them throw out their melted ice cream before they got in his “sick ride.” Thomas held the door open for her again, and when she granted him a smile, Lucius wolf-whistled.


	5. A Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas gets a call from his dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can anyone tell that I have a crush on Jimmy Smits yet...

His phone buzzed on the library table, just before eight. He perked up at the noise, thinking of Holly, but when he turned it over, the caller ID flashed _Dad,_ along with the pic of Nero from Luc’s birthday party last year. His hair was graying more and more these days, but his face was always like stone, constant in a way that never failed to ground Thomas, to settle him.

He took a moment to put on his coat, and asked the frazzled looking girl across the table from him to watch his stuff. By the time he got outside, he’d missed Nero’s call, and had to call him back.

“Hey hey there, son,” his dad said when he answered, his voice warm over the line.

“Hey, Dad, sorry I missed you, I was in the library.”

“Ah, sure you were, you didn’t duck out of a party or nothin’ on a Saturday night.”

Thomas laughed. “No, for real, I’ve got a midterm next week that I’m freaking out about, and—”

“Oh, well,” Nero said, his voice getting deeper and a little more awkward as he edged into apology, “if you need to get back to it, I don’t wanna hold you up or—”

Thomas shook his head, as if the man could see it. “No, no, it’s cool; I needed a study break anyway. I’m up to talk.” The plaza outside the library was mostly desolate, and he started walking in leisurely circles over the brick as he held the phone to his ear.

There was another moment of pause, during which Thomas scrunched up his lips and tried not to audibly suck at his teeth. Finally, Nero let out a drawn out, “Soooo…” before saying, with a bit of a smile returning to his drawl, “Lucius has been telling me that you’ve got a girl out there?”

Thomas closed his eyes and robotically changed directions around the plaza, huffing a laugh into the phone as he rubbed at the side of his face. Fucking Luc.

“Aw, God, Dad, no, not really. She’s just…Her name’s Holly. She’s just a friend.”

“Pretty, blonde, and kind of…WASPy is the description your brother gave.”

Thomas huffed, almost pissed. “She’s just pre-med. And she’s a better dresser than me, is I guess what that means.”

“Oh, sounds like a bore then to me.”

“Holly? No, no way, she’s— she’s great, like, funny as hell and way smarter than me, Dad, I mean, she can run laps around me for all we—” He froze when he realized what Nero had trapped him into: talking her up. He could almost hear the man grinning.

“Aw, Dad.”

Nero laughed. “Sounds like a great girl. Are you telling me you haven’t made a move? That’s not the kid I raised.” He didn’t give him any time to answer. “You gotta take her out someplace nice, Tommy, do it right.” Thomas was already groaning over the line. “I’m talking dinner, and a movie, pay for the check, the whole nine yards. I mean, not to put pressure on you or anything, kid, but you seem to have a smart, leggy blonde in your midst.”

Thomas grinned into the phone, trying not to laugh.

“Where’d you meet? In class?”

Thomas froze again, suddenly, opening his eyes to where he’d been walking in endless tiny circles around the fountain. The silence came quick, and it had an effect on Nero, too, cutting the mirth out of the conversation with precision.

He never lied to his dad, though. It was kind of an unspoken rule, since high school.

He swallowed his nerves and said, “We uh, we met at um, Nar-Anon actually. Local meeting, in the community center, just off campus.”

The silence stretched on for another long moment. Thomas breathed in and then out, through his nose. When Nero spoke again his voice was low, and quiet, breathy over the phone line.

“Ah.”

Thomas tried to breathe normally.

“That’s, uh,” Nero said. “So you’re still going to those meetings, then?”

Thomas coughed, clutched at his phone with white knuckles, and said, “Yeah.”

“No, that’s, uh, good. That’s real good, if it helps you out. You and, uh, Heather, was it?”

“Holly,” he said, voice tight.

“You two got a lot in common, I bet.”

“She doesn’t really…she only went to one meeting, actually, she doesn’t like it like I do, I guess,” he said, voice petering out towards the end.

“Oh,” Nero said. “Well. I want you to, to keep going, you know, if it does help. Don’t let a girl make you feel like that stuff isn’t important,” he continued, voice getting firmer as he went on, like he was pointedly jabbing his index finger at his phone on the other end.

He got like this, when Tom’s meds or his therapy or his— whatever, came up. He was firm and pressing and assured, full of support, but devoid of that easy, comforting warmth that came at the beginning of the call.

“I won’t, Dad,” he said, voice quiet.

“And you’re okay? I,” Nero cut off, taking a deep breath on the end of the line, “Wendy and I, we worry about you, out there on your own.”

“I’m fine, Dad, I’m good.” He smiled, just a little. “And I’m only like an hour from home.”

Nero scoffed. “Might as well be another country.” Thomas swore he heard him mutter, “ _Los Angeles.”_

Thomas smiled, but they were left with a lasting silence anyway. After another moment, Nero sighed, and said, “Well, I better let you get back to work.”

“Okay.”

“You be good, okay?”

“Yeah, Dad. Tell Wendy I say hey.”

“All right. I will.” A pause, and then, “I love you, son.”

“Yeah, Dad, love you too.” Thomas brushed at the back of his head with his palm, and looked down to where he was scuffing at the ground with one shoe.

“All right,” Nero said again. “Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

The line cut out, and when Thomas finally pulled the phone down from the side of his face, the screen was greasy. He rubbed it against his shirt as he walked back into the library.

The frazzled girl, with the poli sci textbooks and the frizzy hair, looked up at him with blank and total confusion when he thanked her for keeping an eye on his bag.

He sighed, and sat back down.


	6. A Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three or four years ago, when Thomas is in the hospital after his suicide attempt, he gets a visit from an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for discussion of attempted suicide, self harm, suicidal ideation, plus all the hospital stuff that goes with it. Nothing graphic though.

He only had one visitor at the hospital, outside of Luc, his dad, and Wendy. And Nero— though the man practically lived at the hospital, camped outside Thomas’ room, spent all day yelling at nurses and staff (God, looking back, the whole thing was only a couple months off from his relapse, and they could already see the signs)— even with all that, Nero didn’t come in all that often. He would stand at the foot of the bed while Wendy held Thomas’ hand and cried, and told him that she loved him. His face was stiff, and hard. Noticeably uncomfortable. Neither of them knew what to say.

Wendy told him that Nero blamed himself. Thomas never found the words to say that Nero had always done the best he could. He just hoped that his father, or, the closest thing he’d ever had to one— he hoped he knew that.

(He didn’t hear from Abel the entire time he was in the hospital. He knew that Nero called him, and told him what happened. But Tom wouldn’t get a single word from his brother until weeks later, when he was back home and he got a drunken, rambling, post-midnight phone call, full of apologies, ending with a fight and hard words that tasted bitter.)

But anyway, in the hospital, it was Chibs: Uncle Chibs was the only one from the club to come.

Thomas woke up in his hospital bed— he was under a 72 hour psych watch at that point, but after so many years of dealing with the staff throughout Luc’s treatments and endless hospital stays, Nero was able to pull some strings, let him have a regular room, let him have visitors. It was a couple days into his stay. He’d spent most of it in kind of a haze, between the initial pain meds, and the mood stabilizers that his shrink had laid out, adjusting the cocktail he’d been on pre-suicide attempt.

No one listened when he tried to tell them it wasn’t a goddamned suicide attempt. He’d only cut so deep on accident. He was fucked in the head, some breed of an emo shitshow, but he wasn’t trying to off himself. Really.

No one bought it. So it was through a cloud of Klonopin and some antipsych meds that he heard, “There ya are, lad,” as he blinked himself awake.

Uncle Chibs. He was slouched down low in one of the chairs in his hospital room. Thomas and Abel, they’d made fun of the man in recent years for trying to grow out his thinning hair and tie it into a long, silver ponytail.

His hair was loose, now, around his neck. His cut, with its _PRESIDENT_ patch, was missing. His face was drawn, and tired.

Chibs was one of the only club members Thomas had much contact with. The others, they talked to Abel more, remembered him fondly, from before Jax died. Sometimes Thomas thought that might have been by Nero’s design— he made it pretty clear he didn’t want SAMCRO having any more influence on Thomas’ life than it already did. It was easy to imagine Nero telling them all to keep away, or else.

But Chibs, he came down to the ranch sometimes, either alone or with a prospect trailing behind him, a few times a year. He’d have a meeting, check in with Wendy, with Nero, then come find the boys, all scarred smiles and presents for the two of them. He took off his cut when he came inside, hung it up on the coat rack with care, under the watchful eye of Wendy.

From overheard phone calls, and sneaking around with Abel, they knew that he came bearing money, often. Wads of cash in small manila envelopes. Some fucked up kind of pension plan that grew out of loyalty to their birth father. It probably killed Nero to take it, but they were in no position not to.

And anyway, that was all back before Abel started spending most of his time in Charming. Chibs didn’t come around anymore. He must have known that Wendy would have tried to tear him apart, screaming. And Nero probably wouldn’t stop her, would just look on, betrayed, stonefaced.

Thomas blinked at the man, trying to clear away the fog clouding around his head. The moment stretched on, too long for him to answer.

Chibs just smiled, slow, his eyes crinkled and his scarred cheeks stretched. “You’re probably gonna be doin’ a lotta sleeping for awhile, Junior. You’re gonna be hurtin’, deep in yourself. Your body knows what ya tried to do to it.”

Thomas felt his eyes welling up. He had cried so much in the past few days. It was the drugs, or the exhaustion, like Chibs was talking about. It was also that he didn’t want to try and give the _accident_ spiel to his Uncle, sitting there, solid and real in his hospital room.

Chibs leaned back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head. “You know, if a member tried something like that, he’d be out,” he said, his voice casual, his face calm.

Thomas would have choked on his own spit, if his mouth wasn’t so dry. He twisted his face up at Chibs, tried to sputter out, “I— I, I’m—” _sorry_ , he was going to say _._

But Chibs put his hands out, his face going softer. “Hush up, lad. Get that rest I’m talking about.”

Thomas breathed in shuddering breaths, staring down his uncle with wet eyes.

The man tilted his head to the side, continuing. “Well, he’d’a only been tossed if we all knew about it. It’s not as if no crow has never tried to end it.” Chibs looked down at his hands. His cut was gone, Thomas noticed again, maybe left under the guard of a prospect outside, but he wore his rings over his scarred, calloused, healed-wrong knuckles. Every crow had those hands.

“There was one man, a kid, from me and your da’s days. He was young. I looked out for him a lotta the time. I was the first one to find out about it when he tried. The only one who knew, for a while.” Chibs screwed up his lips, looking up at Thomas with a wry expression. “The poor fucker tried to hang himself with some chain, wrapped around a tree branch. The whole thing fell down on top of him. What a goddamn sorry lot.”

Thomas flushed, thinking about it. There was some kind of perpetual shame that came with failing even at killing yourself. _I should know, now,_ he thought quietly.

Chibs sighed. “I found out, I told him that if he ever tried it again I’d kill him myself. The rest of the club knew some shit was goin’ down with him, so they threw Oxy at him, and girls, and liquor. It was the best you could do, in those times.

“And maybe he had different reasoning than you. That time, with the chain, on the tree— that grew out of a desperation that none of us could’ve possibly understood.”

Chibs shook his head, as if to clear it. “My point is getting lost. I wanted to come here, and I wanted to tell you somethin’.” Thomas nearly flinched as his uncle pushed his way to standing, leaning on a knee with all his weight. The man just smiled, sad and slow, and came up to his bedside, where Thomas’ forearms were wrapped tight with gauze, laying at his sides like they were manacled there.

He put a hand out to Thomas’ head, pushing his dark hair back from his forehead. Thomas was surprised, when he finally said what he meant to.

“Your brother, he was always gonna do what he was gonna do. I’ve been trying to make your ma understand that—” _Wendy,_ Thomas thought, _he means Wendy_ , “— that if we hadn’t’a patched him in, he would’a gone Nomad, or joined up somewhere worse.

“Abel, he’s got all the parts of your father that made him a good Son. Those looks,” he said, half of a laugh in his voice, which quickly sobered. “The ruthlessness of him. The drive he has for it. The addiction to the life, deep-seated— that’s all there too.”

Chibs stroked his hair, didn’t look away from his eye. “You, Tommy boy, you got all the parts that made him a bad one. Your father was always, well…sensitive, your grandma Gemma called it. He felt things hard, always. Had one hell of an open wound for a heart.” Chibs smiled again, a broken smile. “That got him into a lotta trouble, living the life that he did.

“But listen here,” he said. Chibs’ face went hard again, and he gripped at Thomas’ head, tight, staring him down, making sure he was paying attention. “That ain’t a bad thing. It ain’t bad, the way you feel things. It makes you some kinda person, Junior.” He stared at him, eyes hot. “But it’s a bad thing, for somebody in the Sons. Do ya get me?” Thomas just swallowed, staring up at his uncle.

“Jax didn’t want you, or your brother, to have to live the life he had. And it’s because that kinda livin’ rips that kinda heart right out’a ya. It would tear you up, son,” he said.

Thomas felt tears overflow onto his cheeks, his face getting red.

Chibs continued. “You’re gonna feel lost without your brother, I can tell, for a good long while. It’s a good thing. It’s because of that heart of yours. And Abel, I think one day he’s gonna wake up and regret leaving you, and the family that you all have made together, behind.”

Chibs stroked a gentle hand at his hair, softening, in his face and in his grip. “So I want you to live a good life,” and there he looked stern again for a moment, and pointed a finger in Thomas’ face, saying, “a good _long_ life, not because it’s what Jax Teller wanted for ya, and not because I’m tellin’ ya, but because it’s what you ought tah have. You deserve that life for yourself, alright, Tommy?”

They were interrupted, then, by heavy footsteps at the entryway. A hand ripped the curtain back from where it surrounded them, together at Thomas’ bed. Nero’s voice rang out, hard. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing? What are you even _doing_ here, Chibs? Has Wendy seen you?”

Chibs took his hands off of Thomas, slow and calm. Thomas sniffed, rubbed one bandaged arm at his red eyes, not looking at his father or his uncle.

“No, no,” Chibs said, voice quiet. “I waited till the little mother went for lunch. I just wanted to come and see my nephew,” and then he turned back to Thomas, patting a hand down on his leg on top of the hospital blankets, “who’s been sick.”

Thomas looked up in time to see his dad’s face going pinched with rough anger. “You think this is the best time for that?” he asked through clenched teeth.

Chibs’ voice was dry when he replied, staring Nero down. “Ya,” he said, “I do.”

He turned back to Thomas once more, smiling down at him and ruffling his hair. “I’m goin’ta step out, have a word with your da, and get goin’. I’ll try and stop by again when you’re feeling better, okay lad?”

Thomas nodded forcefully, still feeling how hot his face was.

Chibs leaned in beside him, putting his face with its curling scars and gray-white stubble close to his. “Do ya want me to get Abel down here? The boy’s hurt, an’ scared, an’ bein’ a fool because of it, but I think I could reach out to him and make him see sense.”

Thomas had thought on it. At times in the past couple months it seemed like he wanted nothing more in the world for his brother to come back, to regress a few solid years and live at Norco with him and the family. To stay at Thomas’ side, and hold his hand.

But he wouldn’t take his company if it took his club President making it an order for it to happen. Thomas shook his head, not meeting Chibs’ eye.

Chibs patted him on the shoulder, said, “I’ll see you, son,” and with that turned and walked out of the hospital room.

That left Nero, standing tall at the foot of Thomas’ bed. With him staring at him, face blank, Thomas felt small, and withered, like some failed seedling that you pulled out of the ground and had to throw away.

In the end Nero just nodded at him, and backed away until he had followed Chibs out into the hall.

With the curtain drawn back, and the shades in the windows angled up, Thomas could see into the hallway outside his room. Chibs and his dad didn’t go far before they got into it, Nero standing with his body full of rage, one hand angled on his side while the other pointed and threw wild accusations at his uncle. Chibs gave as good as he got, his face going angry and distorted through the window glass.

Their voices were too muffled for Thomas to hear through the wall. And, Chibs was right, he was just so tired. He didn’t want to hear it anyway.

He turned over on his side, away from his family shouting in the hall, and he slept.


	7. A Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skyler gets a call from her daughter.

Skyler was startled when her daughter said she wanted to bring a guest to Thanksgiving. And not just a friend, she qualified. Holly had never brought a boy home to meet her mother. It wasn't really...her thing, at least in high school.

She said his name was Thomas. He was studying Engineering. He was nice.

"His family isn't really big on Thanksgiving-- they usually do like, Taco Bell and watch Sports Center-- and he's never been out of California in his life. So I thought it might be nice."

That was all the information she got, but it lit her up to know that Holly had met at least a single person in California. Her little girl never complained, and she pushed herself into her studies with a singleminded focus that bordered on frenzied (and if it reminded Skyler of anyone, then she just pushed it down) but she had no friends back home. None at all, that Skyler knew about.

Maybe California really was the right place for her.

At the end of the phone call, Holly tagged on, like she didn’t want to say it but had to force herself: "Mom, he thinks my last name is Lambert. He doesn't...he doesn't know anything about Dad."

Skyler's heart sunk into her chest. Of course. Of course.

"Did you warn your brother?"

"I didn't call him yet. Is he coming this year?"

"Yes, of course he is, Holly. And he’s bringing Lucas, and Marie will be there—with someone she met at the hospital, an old woman who's 'all alone' and she guilt tripped me into inviting."

"Flynn's had over girlfriends and boyfriends before that didn't know. We all pretended for him."

Skyler sighed. "It's not about pretending, sweetheart, it's not like Walter comes up in everyday conversation. We just have to be careful. And...if it was just you and I and Flynn I would trust us to do that, but, I'm worried someone will say something and trip up this young relationship you're forming." She softened, and readied herself to say something Holly didn’t want to hear. Which was par for the course with her youngest. "And Holly, don't you think that, maybe, you should be building something like this on honesty?"

She could hear Holly react across the phone, groaning in anger and pulling her phone away from her mouth. "You've never given this speech to Flynn, have you? Have you? You let him change his goddamn name and lie all that he wants, why can't I avoid it like him?"

"Flynn hasn’t tried to hide it in a long time. Lucas knows, and has almost since they met. It's been years, Holly, almost 20 years! No one is interested anymore!"

"You use Lambert at work.”

She sighed again. “I have for a long time. And it’s less about keeping it from people and more about not wanting his name attached to mine, ever again.” Her voice got more biting than she meant it to, but it silenced Holly for a moment.

She closed her eyes, leaning into the wall with her forehead while she talked. She wished they could have this conversation in person. “It makes sense for you to keep your name to yourself at school. It makes perfect sense to me. And so does wanting to have a relationship without, without your father influencing anything—”

“God, Mom, you’re acting like we’re getting married or something.”

“—and maybe, okay, maybe you do feel it’s too soon with this boy, and that’s fine, we’ll make it work at dinner. I just want you to…think about it. It’s a part of your life, Holly. You can’t avoid it all the time.”

Holly’s voice was a grumble. “I work really hard to make sure it’s not a part of my life.”

Skyler’s heart caught again. “Oh, Holly.”

“But I’ll think about it,” she said, and Skyler quieted. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow it's been a solid 18 months since I updated anything on this, and it's a short one. I've always had a lot more written and stashed away in drafts, but I finally worked through something that I had gotten stuck on. I'll try and post more in the next couple of weeks. thanks for anyone who was actually waiting on this chapter, hahaha!


	8. A Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holly is fourteen when her mom and brother decide to give her the "talk." Which, in their family, is a phrase with a different connotation than most.

Flynn was in for the long weekend for his 30th birthday. Well, he was in for the week _after_ his 30th birthday. He spent the real day in Seattle, with all his work friends and college roommates and…all his adult friends, basically. And then he came back to Albuquerque to have a dinner at Trombini’s with Marie, Holly, and her mother.

There was always a bleakness in Marie’s eyes when one of them passed a milestone like this. Like she knew that if Hank was still alive, he and Flynn would have spent a day together. Hank would have been old, working a desk job or maybe even retired by now, but he would have taken Flynn out drinking, do some wheelies in a buddy’s patrol car.

Holly just watched quietly, drinking a Shirley Temple at dinner while Marie and Skyler bickered and made small talk like the old widows they were. She read a book on her phone under the table while Mom told Flynn that he was too thin, and made eyes at Flynn’s girlfriend, Charlotte, like it was her fault.

“Holly, honey, this is the first time your brother’s been home all year, you could at least look up so we can see your face.”

Holly curled her lip, and sighed, while Flynn said, “Mom, that’s ridiculous I was home for Easter.”

“And it’s _July._ ”

“Holly-Lolly, get your elbows off the table,” Marie said, when she had slouched down with her face smushed into her hand. “This is not a horse’s stable!”

Holly groaned and smacked her face down on the tablecloth, her glasses dinking on the plate. “ _Aunt Marie_ , oh my god you two,” Flynn said, his slur stretching god into _gawwwd_ while he and Charlotte laughed, “she’s 14!”

“But she’s still my _baaaby_ ,” sang Marie, reaching to grab at Holly’s face and squeeze her cheeks. She scowled, ducking out of the way so her aunt wouldn’t coo and make her braces dig into her lips. “Just like you’ll always be your mama’s baby, Flynn.” Flynn and Holly shared a look across their table because their family was the most mortifying thing that’d ever existed.

Mom and Marie got the waitresses to sing Happy, Happy Birthday to Flynn, and give him chocolate cake with a candle and ice cream. Flynn used his big eyes and “be nice to me I’m a disabled guy” thing to get an extra scoop of ice cream for Holly, which maybe he did to make Charlotte think he was sweet (she did smile at them) but still. Ice cream.

 

 

 

Flynn and Charlotte stayed at their rancher, in Mom’s room; Mom took Holly’s twin bed, and Holly slept on the pull-out couch because the springs would be bad for Flynn’s muscles. Flynn protested to no end that he and Charlotte could just get a hotel room, but Skyler wouldn’t hear it— they had a perfectly good place right _here._

Later that night after dinner, when Charlotte was showering before bed (in the bathroom she and her mother shared), her mom called Holly out into the kitchen. “Holly, sweetheart can you come out here? Your brother and I want to talk to you about something.”

Holly had been changing into pajamas while her brother and his stupid girlfriend weren’t taking up her room. She was planning on staying up all night with her earbuds and laptop so she could finish the second season of _Cloud Ship_ on Syfy. So she came out in her cow-jumping-over-the-moon pajamas, and with her laptop under one arm, thinking about how when her mom wanted to have a Big Family Discussion she included Flynn in the “we” in the same way parents included spouses.

Flynn and Skyler were sitting at the kitchen table. Flynn was still in his suit from his dinner, with his braces set to his side. He looked pissed off, which he did pretty much half the time whenever he was home with them. But Mom was smoking, which she tried not to do in front of Holly, so that was making her nervous.

Somebody was dead. Or maybe Holly was gonna go to boarding school out in Washington State (she hoped.) “What is it?” she asked.

“Come here, sweetie,” Skyler said, her voice soft as she stamped out her cigarette.

Holly put her laptop down on the couch, and came and pulled up a chair at the table.

Flynn’s arms were crossed, and he was looking at Mom. She was looking at Flynn, like she thought he was going to start. In the end Holly sighed and put her elbow on the table to lean on her hand.

Skyler smiled. “Holly, now that you’re starting high school this fall, we wanted to tell you some things, for when you start thinking about college.”

Oh, it was only _that_? “Mom,” she whined, “they’ve already got my grade taking placement tests and stuff. My guidance counselor told me to start looking at colleges in _sixth grade._ ” And she had. Holly had a spreadsheet in her school folders, mostly of places at least three states away.

“No, it’s not that, we know you’re on top of that,” her mom said. She pursed her lips when she was done, like she didn’t know how to continue. Flynn looked like he was determined not to be of any help.

“We wanted,” she finally started again, peering at Holly through her reading glasses, “to talk to you about money.”

Holly kept her mouth shut. That spreadsheet was ranked by the out-of-state cost, the amount in student loans she’d have to take out in order to go. She knew they didn’t have the money to send her to college.

“You know that when you were a baby, your brother, when he turned 18, he came into some money.” Holly nodded. His big scholarship, or whatever. He didn’t need loans.

“Since it was so long ago, and since you were so young, I don’t think we…we didn’t give you a picture of just how much money there was.”

Holly furrowed her brow. She was confused, now. “How much was it?”

Skyler thinned her lips again, and looked away from Holly, looking caught in consideration. “Well, it was…it was quite, uh—”

Flynn finally chimed in, from where he was slouching, grim-faced, in the kitchen chair. “It was 9.2 million dollars.”

Holly blinked. All three of them sat there, for a moment, in silence.

She found her voice. “Nine…nine million dollars?”

Flynn spoke again, this time with his eyes closed, one hand on his forehead. “9.2 million dollars, exactly. It was a very…exact number.”

Holly blinked again, expecting her mother to explain, but both of them weren’t speaking, weren’t looking her in the eye.

All she could think to say was, “That’s…that’s more than enough for you to go to school.” Neither of them replied, so she asked, “What happened to the rest of it?”

They moved, when she was little, from a shitty apartment to a moderately shitty ranch style home, 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath. Flynn didn’t have trouble paying for school but he didn’t suddenly move somewhere flashy, or drive a new car.

“Well,” her mother started, “some of it went to paying for this place. Some of it helped pay off our credit card bills from when I wasn’t working.”

Flynn piped in again. “Mom convinced me to use it to pay for school. And I let her take out what she needed.”

Holly stared at them, trying to take it all in. “And…how much did all of that take?”

“About $300,000,” Flynn said. “With added interest, it’s earned that back and more in the bank.”

“You didn’t…” she said, “use it for anything else? After school?”

“Nope,” Flynn said, drawing out the sound, and then hanging his head back so he would have been staring up at the ceiling if he didn’t have his eyes closed.

“Yes, well,” Skyler said, “since your brother didn’t…have a need for a lot of it, I proposed an idea to split the trust, into two parts. Meaning about 4.5—”

“4.6,” Flynn said, still not facing them.

“4. _6,_ ” said Skyler, sounding a little irritated and trying not to show it, “million dollars. About $4.6 million is there for you, when you turn 18.”

Holly just stared at them, dumbfounded. She could feel her mouth hanging open, the rubber bands around her braces stretching, as she stared with her eyes narrowed.

“Where did it _come_ from?”

“That’s the million dollar question,” said Flynn, voice bitter. He trailed off quietly, “The 9.2 million dollar question.”

Skyler spoke up and spoke over him, as if he wasn’t saying anything. “Some old…old colleagues of your father. The Schwartzes. With everything going on with the case back then, I think they must have been feeling a sense of, of loyalty. Or else guilt, which amounts to about the same thing,” her mother said, her voice going back to her usual caustic edge which had been lacking for this conversation. She shook herself, putting her hands out in front of her body. “At any rate, they wanted to do something to benefit Walt’s family. And with Flynn going to college right around then, they put together—”

“Ah yes,” Flynn said, “they put together exactly $9.2 million, just enough for four years of college tuition in 2012.”

“Flynn, _please,_ ” Skyler said, her voice strained.

Flynn pushed himself up from the table, grabbing up his arm braces. He stared down at Holly, sitting at the table. “Holly, I love you, and I want you to go to a good school. Half of that money is for you, and you can do whatever you want with it. Spend it all on lottery tickets, buy a sports car, I don’t care. I just want you to know where it’s coming from—”

“Flynn, for Christ’s sake, she’s a child.”

“She’s _fourteen,_ mom!”

“And even you don’t know where it’s from! It’s always been your own paranoia! You don’t _know_ and now you’re going to poison her against—”

“She deserves to know about her own—”

“ _Enough!”_ Holly shouted, standing up and making her chair screech against the kitchen tile. They both froze and looked at her, Flynn standing above their mom, waving one of his braces out to the side.

Holly put her hands down on the table, looking at them both. “I wanna know what’s going on. Flynn is right, I’m old enough, and Mom you know I can handle it.”

Skyler’s face went pinched. “I know you can, honey. I just. I don’t want you to have to—”

Flynn cut her off. “I’ve always thought the money might be from Dad.”

Holly’s eyes widened, and Skyler put her head down onto her hand.

Flynn was practically panting. “You— You’re a, a smart kid, Holly. That money, showing up in the middle of all of that? From two people that Dad _hated_?” He shook his head, no longer looking at her. “He was _obsessed_ with getting us his money. The last time I talked to him, he was trying to figure out a way to load up a box with cash and send it to _Louis’_ family. He would have done anything to get us that money, the money he made _killing_ people, killing Uncle _Hank._ ”

He shook his head again, getting his braces underneath himself to start walking out of the kitchen. He came around the table to where Holly was still standing, and leaned against the chair so he could put a hand out on her shoulder. “Holls, like I said. I love you. And I want the best for you. You can take the money, you can use it for school, or for whatever, or you can let it sit there in the bank like I have. It’s up to you.” He pulled her in close, her brother who often felt old enough to be her father. She tucked her face under his chin, and rested there for a moment as he rubbed at her back. “I just want you to have all the facts, like I did.”

Then he let go. He turned his face to Mom and said, “G’night,” and made his way towards the back of the house.

That left Skyler and Holly, alone in the kitchen. Her mom made that kind of smile that turned mostly down, looked more like a frown and like she didn’t know what to say or do with her face. She sounded choked up when she spoke. “Is it lame, if I say ‘same’?”

Holly smiled against her will, which she knew was her mother’s intention.

Skyler huffed in a breath. “I want the best for you, Holly, just as I always do. So, whatever you decide—”

“I’m gonna think about it,” she said. “I mean, I’ve got four years to choose.”

Skyler nodded, obviously holding back another comment. Holly appreciated it. She said, “I want to go to bed now, mom.”

Her mom nodded, blinking slow, and got up. She came over to Holly’s side, gave her a kiss on the head, and then backtracked into the kitchen, where she poured herself a healthy glass of wine. “Goodnight, my love,” she said, and retreated into Holly’s bedroom, down the hall.

Holly waited a moment, then walked over the couch, sitting down cross legged. She opened her laptop. _Cloud Ship_ was loading, but she minimized it. She opened up her college spreadsheet.

Washington State. Oregon State. A couple places in Northern California, some as far south as Texas. All the most affordable. All at the top of her list.

She looked at it for a little while, moving around a few entries, color coordinating the ones on her favorites list, updating her preference column.

After another slow moment of deliberation, she moved her cursor across the screen. With a sense of finality, she right clicked the “Cost” column, and deleted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love my gay (bi) son, Walter White Jr. Sorry if he comes across as a dick, that's partially because it's from his little sister's perspective and partially because I think the man deserves a break for a couple dysfunctional attitudes. Also he and his bud Louis were definitely gay during the events of the series and I might do a little extra chapter about that.


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